Top athletes are noted to be highly coordinated and have excellent hand-eye coordination. Good coordination is a function of balance and balance is a function of the level of open neural pathways in the brain that control the right and left sides of the body working in tandem. The higher the degree of ambidexterity (naturally occurring open pathways) an individual athlete may have, the higher the level of coordination, balance, and hand-eye coordination.
All athletes that utilize a predominant or dominant side of the body such as baseball hitters, baseball pitchers, tennis players, football quarterbacks, football kickers, and golfers will conduct sport specific training solely on their predominant or dominant side. This unilateral type of training creates recurring usage of a specific group of proprioceptive-neural-motor muscular pathways. The brain seeks out pathways of least resistance or those pathways most often used. In many sports, when an athlete needs to be flexible in game situation to make their bodies or limbs move in the direction of an eye focused target, motor muscular movement may take upon its own involuntary movement utilizing those pathways it has taken thousands of times before in practice. As a consequence, muscle movement in athletes may take upon a neural pathway that makes the movement more “preprogrammed” and involuntary rather than a more controlled, voluntary movement, especially in instances where reaction times need to occur in short intervals of seconds or milliseconds.
When one considers that there are approximately 84 billion neurons in the brain, the possible combination and connections among and between those neurons to control motor muscular movement from differing external stimuli and proprioceptive interactions is quite staggering. In sport specific training and in any sport that predominantly uses one side or dominant side of the body, the number of proprioceptive-neural-motor-muscular pathways that an athlete will use has a certain threshold based on repetitive moment. That threshold among athletes will vary depending on how naturally ambidextrous that individual may be.
Much scientific study and research can be found for contralateral effects and cross education principles utilized in rehab for sports athletes and medical rehab for stroke victims for over a century. As an example, Ichiro Suzuki is a left handed hitter who throws a baseball with his right hand. During batting practice Ichiro hits from both sides like a switch hitter, however, he always bats left at the plate in live game situations. When asked why he only bats left during games, when he could easily be a switch hitter, he responds that switch hitting practice creates “balance.” Except for switch hitters in baseball, most, if not all batters consider a bilateral approach a waste of time. Another example is Yu Darvish who is a right handed pitcher. In practice during warm ups before a game, Yu Darvish will be seen throwing the baseball with his left arm. It is noted that Darvish can pitch 85 mph with his left arm. When asked why he practices with his left, his response is the same as Ichiro Suzuki, it creates “balance.”
The bilateral approach to sport specific training, where an athlete trains the opposite or non-dominant side of his body fosters activation of proprioceptive-neural-motor muscular pathways that have previously been dormant. If the brain could compared to a GPS coordinate system with both sides of the brain open and mapped, in the same manner that a precise route can be found through the GPS, the eye's focus will move the muscles to a route to reach its intended target. When part of the brain is not open or “mapped” because it has not been activated, the proprioceptive focus moving the muscles to its intended target is simply not as precise, creating larger margins of error.
Accordingly, given potential resistance of athletes to train their non-dominant side or fully understand the beneficial cross-over effects that contra-lateral and cross education principles provide, a need exists for an apparatus that opens unused neural pathways in the brain through a safe, natural, and organic process without requiring that the athlete exercise his or her non-dominant side in a sport specific way.